Chapter 5
Retrospectively, they both owed Dawn a thank you for interrupting them when she did. Because she’d really given them some good advice. Getting a room had definitely been the way to go, since Buffy’s bed was much larger and more comfortable than that old couch.
Spike especially appreciated the fact that they could lie side-by-side like this, their legs twined intimately atop the sheets, leaving their hands free to explore while their lips met for long, languorous kisses. Buffy’s hot little fingers had found their way under his t-shirt and were tracing each and every vertebra as she worked her way up his spine.
He sighed, closed his eyes, and debated the likelihood that this was all just some wonderful dream. Or cruel dream, depending on his point of view. All the more torture once he woke up and realized that he never had this sort of luck. Yeah, he’d probably just passed out on his floor from too much alcohol and—
Soft lips pressed against the pulse point of his throat, and a hot little tongue tasted his skin. He broke into a deep purr at the sensation, his entire body vibrating contentedly.
Right. So maybe this wasn’t a dream. Because nothing on earth could possibly attempt to imitate the pleasure of having his Slayer’s mouth on his neck.
“You like that?” she half asked, half stated.
“Mmm…” he agreed.
“That’s nice, you know,” she murmured softly, snuggling in closer to him and pressing her ear against his chest.
“Mmm?” He seemed to have lost all ability for coherent speech. Of course, that wasn’t exactly unusual around Buffy…
“The purring,” she clarified. Her arm slid around his waist, holding him tighter to her.
He opened one annoyed eye.
“Friendly growling?” she suggested, looking horribly amused.
He could stand to give her a giggle or two if she just kept surrounding him with her heat like that. The eye closed.
“Are you falling asleep on me?” she demanded sternly.
“’S daylight,” he reminded her. “That’s when vampires sleep.”
“Yeah, but I’m feeling…itchy…” she complained.
“You wanna good scratch?” He gave her his patented leer and leaned in to nibble on her earlobe.
She hummed in pleasure. “Yes, please,” she agreed, sounding ridiculously over-eager.
“Then you’d better let me get my beauty sleep,” he countered triumphantly, before rolling onto his back and shutting his eyes once more.
“Hey!” she protested in disbelief upon discovery that she no longer had an armful of sexy vampire at her disposal.
“Best to sleep now,” he clarified, “so ‘ll be rested up for this evening.”
Her eyes narrowed as she looked down at him. “What’s this evening?”
He tisked. “Bit has her shindig over at Wendy’s,” he reminded her. “Which means—”
“…We can do anything we want,” she realized with sudden delight. “House all to ourselves.”
“That’s my girl,” he smiled with closed eyes. And, even though he couldn’t see her, he just knew she was rolling her eyes at him. “Only fair, really.”
“What is?”
He opened his eyes to look into hers. “Waited a whole bloody year for this. Through your death, even.”
She bit her lip and looked down to where her hand was caressing the muscles of his stomach through his t-shirt.
“Trust me, waitin’ until evening is nothing compared to that.” He pulled her down to him apologetically, sighing at the realization of how well their bodies fit together when they lay like this.
“Mmm,” she agreed, “good things are worth waiting for…”
“Plus,” he countered with a cheeky grin, “it’ll give you a few hours to repay me for waitin’ on you so well. Could stand for a little return pamperin’…”
She whapped him on the arm and spooned up behind him. “Get your own damn blood. That stuff is gross.” She scrunched up her nose in distaste. “Besides, I need to be rested up for this evening, too.”
He sighed and let himself be absorbed by the feeling of her soft, warm body wrapped around him. Much as it shamed his Big Bad image, he’d imagined what this would be like from time to time when he was feeling particularly masochistic. The sex dreams had been fun, yes, but the ones that really got to him were the ones where she just touched him, kissed him, held him like he actually meant something. God, she’d turned him pathetic. He might as well act the part of a kept vamp for all the bite he had left…
And it wasn’t like he didn’t get something out of it in return. The actual feel of Slayers arms holding him close was better than any dream he could have imagined. Maybe it finally was time to put the Big Bad notions to rest. In the back of his mind, he kind of had to admit that he wasn’t really all that scary anymore. Well, except to the fledglings he staked nightly. His own kind was starting to tremble in his presence again. It was just that damn lady at the DMV who insisted he needed insurance before they’d return his DeSoto who didn’t. Well, and the entire Scooby lot. Maybe he could live with that…
“Buffy…” he began slowly, never able to keep his big mouth shut once his mind got thinking about something.
“Mmm?” she murmured sleepily against his ear.
“’m seriously considering giving up evil.”
A pause.
Then a giggle.
“I’m bloody serious!” he protested indignantly.
She tried to stifle another giggle, but failed. “Spike…you haven’t really been evil for a while now. You do know that, right?” she informed him cautiously.
“Am so!” Damn, that knee-jerk reaction was strong .
Buffy just rolled her eyes and laced her fingers with his, turning him gently so that he was facing her. “You patrol every night,” she began to tick off points on her fingers. “You’ve saved Dawn from at least a dozen demons. And at really creepy guy from her chem class who couldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. You’ve helped avert several apocalypses. You made the Slayer chicken soup when she was sick. And, oh yeah, you’re a great babysitter. These are not the acts of an evil being.”
He frowned. “Not so sure I agree with you on the last one, pet. You ever seen those Babysitter Club books around?” He shuddered. “There’s something downright sinister about those things…”
She smiled softly. “Now, I know you’re teasing me,” she concluded.
“You think so?” he said defensively. “Unholy the way the teenage girlies devour those things. ‘s about time we investigated—”
“Ha!” Buffy concluded. “Caught you being not evil!”
He growled with annoyance. “I eat kittens!” he insisted.
“So do dogs,” she shrugged. Before frowning. “At least…I think they do? I mean, why else would they chase cats?”
“No clue, pet.”
Buffy whimpered. “If they don’t…then my cartoons have lied to me!”
“Oh, now you’re just rubbin’ it in! ‘Spike’s not evil, so ‘ll just—’”
“Screw him silly?” she finished hopefully.
He considered that for a moment. “Works fine by me,” he finally conceded. “But that doesn’t make me good.”
“No,” she agreed, “it makes you a deliciously sexy shade of grey…”
Not really much about that a vamp could object to. Except: “Just no more with the puppy dog comparisons, right?”
Buffy jutted out her lower lip in a pout. “But you’ve got such a cute little tail,” she patted his butt, “and you waggle it about so proudly when you’re happy.”
“Hey!” His eyes widened in mortification.
“That, and you’ve got a very nice bone.” Her hand slipped between them to squeeze the bone in question.
He swore in pleasure and forgot his objections. Before remembering. Oh yeah, she was making fun of his lack of evilness. He should probably do something about that. “No fair,” he pouted.
“What?” she said in disbelief. “You think that just because we made with the smoochies that we would stop taunting each other and turn boring and lovey-dovey? ‘Cause no way, mister. Half the fun of being with you is the snark.”
“And the other half seems to be playing with my bone,” he retorted with a smirk.
She scowled at him. “Someone seems to have his bone on the brain. Isn’t that what you’d call a bonehead?”
“Yeah, because someone else seems to have my bone in her hand. Think you’re the one with bone on the brain, luv…”
“Hey!” she protested. “You just called me a bonehead!” She swatted at him, but he caught her head, rolled on top of her to keep her from struggling…
“Since you seem to like my bone so much…” he ground against her.
“Jerk,” she grumbled. “I thought we were supposed to be sleeping, anyway.”
“See? I am evil. Can’t trust me for a minute,” he announced triumphantly, nipping at her throat. “Big Bad Spike’s gonna eat you right up…”
“Yeah, right.” She didn’t sound convinced in the slightest.
“All right, fine. Big Bad Spike’s gonna eat you out ,” he amended, his kisses moving down her chest and heading pointedly towards…
“Stop that!” she squirmed when his nose pushed up her shirt and he began kissing her navel. “W-We’re supposed to…” Unable to stop herself, she let out a sudden giggle.
Spike grinned up at her malevolently. “Don’t tell me the Slayer’s…ticklish?” he teased.
“N-No,” she insisted nervously.
“So then you wouldn’t mind if I…?” She most certainly did mind and squirmed deliciously under him as he tried to catch her foot. He eventually won, though. After all, he was the Big Bad.
She let out little screeching bouts of laughter as he tickled her foot mercilessly. A Slayer in the grip of hysterics was a slippery fish to hold onto, and the two of them became hopelessly tangled in a mass of limbs. Warm flesh wrapped around him in all sorts of strange, impossible ways, and Spike sighed in contentment as he continued to torture the object of his undying affections.
In the back of his mind, he could almost hear Dawn calling them both “total dorks,” but it this was what being a total dork was like, he’d take it over being the Big Bad any day…
As if Dawn could sense one of her insults being invoked, she suddenly decided to shout out at the top of her lungs:
“I have no clue what you two are doing up there! But I’m sooo getting therapy because of it! And you’re paying for it!”
That caused Spike to freeze and Buffy to recover, gasping for air and scowling at him, while managing to look sheepish at the same time. “We were just sleeping!” she shouted back down to Dawn.
“Yeah, right!” Spike swore in that moment that he could actually hear Dawn’s eyes rolling. He hadn’t been aware until that moment that his vampire senses were that finely honed… “‘Sleeping’, sure. How clueless do you think I am?”
There was no real way to answer that.
“Sorry!” Buffy called back down to her.
Dawn’s grumbling could be heard downstairs. Given how sullen she seemed about her brilliant success in matchmaking, Spike wondered why she’d bothered in the first place. Then he remembered that she was a teenager, and sullenness was her natural response to everything , including whatever made her happy. His poor Bit with all her hormones…
Buffy turned to Spike and gave him a very stern look. “Sleeping,” she reminded him.
“Absolutely,” he agreed with faux-gravity.
She lay her head down on the pillow, and he joined her, so that they lay facing each other.
“Not another peep,” she informed him.
“’Course not.”
“And no more hanky-panky.”
“Not while Nibblet’s still in the house,” he agreed.
“Good.” She closed her eyes.
He did as well.
They rest for a moment…and then she slid her hand into his pants and gave Junior a squeeze.
His eyes opened wide with astonishment and desire.
“Sleeping,” she insisted, without even opening her eyes.
“Minx,” he grumbled and lay back down again. It was going to be one sleepless day. However, with Buffy’s hand down his jeans, he really couldn’t bring himself to care…
* * *
“Hey, guys. I’m—Oh my god , I don’t even want to know!”
Spike jolted awake in surprise at the sound of Dawn’s exclamation. And, damn. He’d been having a rather lovely dream about how the Slayer had stuck her tiny hand into his pants and was jerking him off while he slept.
Oh, wait… Buffy really did have her hand stuck down his pants and was jerking him off while he slept. Damn, life was good…
Of course, Dawn had just been traumatized again by that very fact. Spike couldn’t quite remember being a teenager, but it must be extremely difficult given that virtually anything could cause permanent psychological damage. Rough, that.
“Oh, quit complaining,” Buffy grumbled, extricating her face from the pillow and turning her head to look at Dawn. “You’re the one who pointed out the size of Spike’s bulge in the first place.”
Dawn’s face turned a rather interesting shade of red. Spike was rather sure that his face had as well, and he distracted himself by tossing the blanket over his and Buffy’s bodies. Of course, that would leave Dawn to wonder what they were doing underneath, but at least she couldn’t see it. Spike hoped that was an improvement.
There was a moment of anticipation, while they all waited to see whether Dawn would explode or flee. But the she quickly did the later.
“I’mgoingtoWendy’s, bye!” she announced in one breath before dashing from the room.
“Mean, ungrateful big sis,” Spike chided Buffy lightly.
“Little sis needs to learn how to knock first,” Buffy concluded. “So, now that we have the house to ourselves…”
He licked his lips hesitantly, pretty damn sure he didn’t want to say this, but he felt compelled to nonetheless. Just what had she done to him, anyway? He almost longed for the days when he hadn’t cared for much of anything besides his own pleasure. But then, of course, he was still roughly the same. Just now his pleasure equated with this girl’s pleasure as well. And he didn’t think he’d change that for anything in the world. Especially when she smiled at him the way she was now.
“Look, Buffy…” he began slowly, carefully.
She frowned slightly, looking puzzled by his serious mood. “What’s up?” she asked curiously, her fingers running lightly up and down his arm as if fascinated by the muscles there.
“About tonight…”
“Tonight is going to be absolute bliss,” she assured him.
“We don’t…” he sighed. God, this was hard. “I mean, I know you’ve had a hard time of it this last year. What with dying and your mum and the nutcase with the bad perm after sis and soldier boy turning out to be gay and all…”
“Riley wasn’t gay…” Buffy corrected, before shrugging. It wasn’t the sort of point that was worth arguing over. Spike seemed to be firmly entrenched in his own version of reality where he was evil, Riley was gay, and Anya was secretly having a three-way with Willow and Tara. Although, given Anya…
“All that ‘m saying is… I’ve waited a year, luv. No need to placate me tonight, if you’re not ready.”
Buffy froze for a second, looking at him in disbelief. For a moment, it looked as though her eyes were tearing up. She sat up in the bed, moving closer to him, and said…
“Are you out of your mind?”
“Huh?” Spike was rather startled by the abrupt yelling.
“Do you have any idea how long it’s been?” Buffy demanded. “What with all the hell goddesses and deaths and obligations and – as enjoyable as heaven might be – it’s not exactly a good place to get laid.”
He snorted and rolled his eyes. “Figured as much.”
“So now that I have a perfectly good boyfriend with a sexy ass and a house all to myself?” she continued. “Why did you think I had my hand down your pants? You are sooo putting out tonight, mister.” She put her hands on her hips in a no-nonsense manner.
He gulped. “Have I ever mentioned you’re gorgeous when you’re domineering?”
She just shook her head. “Pants. Off. Now.”
It wasn’t a request he was reluctant to comply with in the least.